by David Wake
“My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began. “Tonight, for your entertainment, for your exaltification, your edification and your entrepidation…”
His pause elicited an ‘ooh’.
“I don’t think those are words,” Earnestine said.
“Don’t spoil it, Ness,” Georgina whispered in reply.
“…your entrapulation.”
“See?”
“Ness!”
The Master of Ceremonies established and extended an edifice of excitement and exhilaration before, exhausted, he changed letter: “First, a Maestro of Magic, the Mage of Mañana, the Mephistopheles of Magnificence – do you want to know your future, madam? This man, this prestidigitator of precognition, can and will. Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, all the way from Moscow, the Master Malakov!!!”
Another formally dressed man entered to the Master of Ceremonies beckoning hand.
“Dames, Gospoda! And the spirits, the ethereal conveyors from the beyond, I bid thee welcome.”
The magician sported a Russian beard, piercing eyes and some vowels from Hackney, but he had a charisma that demanded attention. He strode across the stage, held his right hand to his forehead and invited the audience closer with his left.
“The spirits,” Malakov announced, “they are here, they can see the future. You madam, your name is… Ethel.”
“It is, it is,” said a woman in pink, turning round to tell everyone behind her row.
“You come from… Harrow.”
“I do, I do.”
“You – I see it now, clearly as if it were happening this very moment in front of me – you are going to meet a stranger, tall and dark.”
“Oh yes.”
Everyone in the stalls thought it incredible, but Earnestine was less impressed. I mean, she thought, how would one know if Ethel from Harrow was going to meet a tall, dark stranger? The audience applauded and Ethel was well pleased, but surely such an act should be congratulated only after it was demonstrably true. And men were either tall or short, light or dark, known or unknown, so surely by the law of averages, Ethel was bound to meet at least one tall, dark stranger with every eight men she met.
The Master Malakov turned his attention to the higher realms of the auditorium.
“I feel… is there someone who has lost a dear, dear person to them?”
Georgina stiffened next to Earnestine.
“Well, obviously, one’s only got to look at how many people are dressed in black,” Earnestine said, rather too loudly. She regretted it as the Master’s attention was drawn inexorably towards their box.
“Up here,” Malakov said. He pointed and a light from upon high shone in their faces. “Yes, a father… no, a husband… beginning with an eee… jaaa… aahhh.”
Georgina cried out: “Arthur!”
“Arthur, he was tall… a military man.”
Georgina lent forward: “Yes.”
“He’s here now.”
The audience applauded the arrival of the unseen military man.
“He wants to say something… yes… it’s coming through now… ‘I love you’.”
Georgina breathed out, a gasp of utter rapture: her cheeks shone in the light. She was crying: there was no excuse for such a display, Earnestine thought, and that went for all the women swooning in the stalls as well.
It was simply bad taste to remind those who had lost a loved one of their calamity. Part of the reason they were going out for the evening was to try and jolly Georgina out of the dark humour that had settled upon her, and not to have entertainers turn it into a spectacle for all and sundry.
Now, Georgina would just sink back into her black mood again, all because her husband had been murdered during that business with the Austro–Hungarians, which hadn’t been an adventure at all.
It was rotten luck, undoubtedly, but Earnestine had caught Georgina not exactly complaining, but sighing and gazing longingly into the distance and generally carrying on. All this sympathy for Georgina was one thing, but in truth she was jolly lucky to have had a husband at all. Earnestine suspected Georgina was deliberately being sick every morning to engender the appearance of romantically suffering. It came from reading Shelley.
The so–called Russian returned to the stalls and told a man on the third row that he would come into a fortune because of a red crow.
“Running in the two thirty,” shouted some wit.
The crowd laughed and the magician made his farewell with a bow.
Earnestine felt guilty: she was being unfair, deplorably so. Her worries were spilling over into meanness and she resolved to stop thinking ill of people and to be kinder.
“Would you like a sweetmeat?” Earnestine asked Georgina.
“Thank you,” Georgina replied. She took two: she was eating like a horse these days.
A hand and a military sleeve with frayed cuffs appeared from behind with a handkerchief for Georgina.
One should be more understanding, Earnestine thought. Yes, a little more consideration and a softer voice would be the right tonic for her sister.
“What’s the matter with you?” Georgina asked.
“Nothing at all,” Earnestine snapped.
Next was a comedy routine about the French Foreign Legion, which was distinctly bloodthirsty. Obviously Charlotte loved that, and jounced up and down braying in a vulgar manner.
This was followed by an equally uncouth turn: a singsong by a cockney lady, whose sharp voice was thankfully drowned out by the massed choir of the stalls.
Another magician showed genuine shimmering ghosts in a large room constructed on stage for the purpose, but their position in the box meant they couldn’t see properly. However, they did see an actual apparition clearly present, floating by the magician, which was extraordinary. He finished his act with sword swallowing and Charlotte named all the weapons used.
The crescendo of the cavalcade of coruscation – the Master of Ceremonies didn’t approach alliteration alphabetically – was a brass band and another singsong before a collection for Our Boys Across The Sea fighting the wicked Boer.
Eventually, thankfully, the interminable parade of nonsense came to an end.
Captain Caruthers held the door open as everyone made their way out. Earnestine was the last to reach it. Caruthers shifted, blocking her way.
“That magician: conjuring up the dead like that,” he said.
“If one believes in that sort of thing,” Earnestine said.
“Good old Merry, eh? Talking like that, in front of all those people and without a hint of a stutter.”
Earnestine remembered Captain Merryweather’s stutter with a smile: “And foretelling the future, but not in a way we can check.”
“The future, yes… Miss Deering–Dolittle?”
“Captain?”
He checked they weren’t being overheard: “I was wondering… that is to say. Two things. You’ve done a great service to the Empire over that Austro–Hungarian business. You were jolly brave, admirable in every way, so I thought that… there are other services… duties and wotnot… that is to say, what I mean is…”
“Captain?”
“I understand your situation. A young lady, who has yet to come of age, and therefore not eligible for her trust, is somewhat beholden to other men, so perhaps other men could…” he faltered, and then rallied: “You understand?”
“What are you trying to say?”
If Caruthers was actually bumbling towards a proposal – and it would take all evening at this rate – then everything would follow his suit like cards in Bridge. Georgina would come back into play naturally and Charlotte could be hidden up a sleeve until she was more sensible. This was a truly excellent turn of events.
But shouldn’t one feel all aflutter, Earnestine thought, as they did in those books Georgina read?
“I have something for you,” said Caruthers.
He dug in his pocket for something, something flat and white, and at any moment he would drop to one knee an
d present a ring, but instead he thrust an envelope into her hands.
She fumbled with it and, finally, she felt an emotion.
“One cannot accept this,” she stated.
“Why ever not?”
“We don’t live on charity.”
“It’s not charity.”
“What is it then?”
“It’s a letter of introduction for employment.”
“Employment!”
“Yes.”
“I’m not a domestic.”
“No, please… may I start again?”
“If you please – directly.”
“Major Dan and I thought, well, your situation prompted us to consider you, and, of course, your sterling service to Her Majesty and the Empire, which must remain secret, so then the secrecy is a qualification. Don’t you see?”
“I’m afraid not, you are being obscure.”
“It’s an administrative position at the Patents Pending Office.”
“Patents…”
“Pending Office, yes. On Queensbury Road, it’s impossible to miss,” Caruthers explained. “You need simply go and announce yourself.”
“I see.”
“That’s a letter of introduction from Major Dan.”
Earnestine smoothed out the envelope. It bore a single letter: ‘B’.
“I’ll give it some thought,” she said.
“Do,” said Caruthers, and then he paused with casual carelessness. “You’d be doing us a great service, of course, and we all have our duties.”
He smiled.
Earnestine nodded: she knew when she’d been gulled.
Mrs Arthur Merryweather
The evening had gone so quickly, and for Georgina it had been fleeting and ephemeral. She had laughed, and sung, and actually enjoyed herself. The entertainment had been jolly and diverting certainly, but to have heard from Arthur again had been a true wonder. However, each step now seemed to take her further away from his kindly visitation. Despite the jostling crowd, she felt alone once more.
The show was over.
She missed Arthur. She wanted to check his watch again, to hold that connection with him a little longer, but the crowd bumped into her too many times and she feared dropping it. She’d been without him longer than they’d been together, but time didn’t seem to make a difference. He was an ever–present gap next to her.
Outside the theatre, there was the usual bustle and noise. The street was lit by the garish glow of many gas lamps, those of the theatre glaring up at posters of entertainment and advertisement, while the street lamps blazed upon their wrought iron posts. Women sold matches or posies of flowers, boys ran hither and thither with messages and hawkers plied their wares. A Peeler shooed away a beggar. Newspaper men shouted the headlines and waved copies of the evening editions aloft.
“Another disappearance, another disappearance…” they hollered: there being only one story of the day.
That’s what she wanted: to disappear, to get away from all the fuss, and well–meaning tea, sympathy and cake. She wanted to be left alone and yet at the same time she wanted to hold on to what she had left. She knew it wasn’t the world that was slipping away from her, but she herself who was drifting.
In her bag was a letter, an official document that she had so often hidden, put aside and distracted herself from, so that it had begun to dominate her every thought. Such was its influence that she had got out her luggage and put away her luggage so many times. She’d even taken down her Bradshaw to look up the train times.
Caruthers appeared with an arm to guide her to a quieter area by some stone steps, but even here it was busy.
“Erm…” he said.
A gentleman vendor approached to suggest that they have their picture taken as a souvenir.
Caruthers sidled away leaving Georgina with an opportunity to examine the photographic apparatus, lifting her dark veil to do so. Perched atop a tripod was a teak box. A glass lens protruded from the front held in a brass fitting and at the back, under a cloth, was the bellows used for focussing the inverted image. The man carefully explained the magic of photography and the alchemy of the enchanted plate, while Georgina patiently nodded and examined the ingenious way the silver–coated, copper daguerreotype plate was inserted. She’d read about it and seen figures from ‘a’ to ‘g’, but it was fascinating to see one in reality.
The man came to his conclusion: “…and I hide beneath this cloth to perform the conjuring trick.”
“I see you are still using the collodion wet plate process,” Georgina said sweetly. “I would have thought that the gelatine dry plate would be preferable.”
“This is an excellent apparatus and works perfectly satisfactorily.”
“But aren’t silver halides more sensitive and thus reduce the required exposure time?”
“I have magnesium powder,” he said.
The explosive powder of magnesium and potassium chlorate was ready loaded in a metal flash lamp, the dry cells ready to deliver the galvanic ignition charge.
“Gina!”
It was Earnestine, standing between Captain Caruthers and Lieutenant McKendry, and jerking her hand to call her over. Her place was on the lower step between Uncle Jeremiah and Charlotte, so when she joined them, Georgina felt comforted, surrounded as she was. Perhaps, she thought, she should leave a gap to her right, a space for Arthur. She felt like moving away from Uncle Jeremiah to do so.
Charlotte nudged her.
“Lottie, don’t crowd so,” Georgina said.
Charlotte answered back: “The man says we should move together.”
The photographer seemed like a headless monster as he bent down and buried his head under the cloth hood. His arms stuck out and he waved the group together.
They bunched up.
With a shock, Georgina realised that her mourning veil was still raised. She should move it down, but it was too late: the man held the flash upright and lit the magnesium: it burned, crackling loudly and was painfully bright.
“Don’t move!” Earnestine commanded in a voice that had clearly been forced between stiff lips.
Georgina gripped Charlotte’s hand to avoid any fidgets.
As she felt the others come to attention, she stood erect and proper too, but in the moment of stillness she shivered. It was as if they were all being watched; she fought the impulse to glance around. As the moment stretched, she had a premonition that everything was passing over, disappearing as if the camera wasn’t saving the moment, but stealing it away. She held on tight, hoping she could preserve something.
A man walked behind them, but she knew that he would be smeared away by the long exposure.
She thought about the letter in her bag.
The light died away and the man slotted the covering plates into the camera. They could move again.
It was done, the image fixed forever. Or so it seemed to Georgina then.
Miss Charlotte
“Ow!”
Charlotte pulled her hand away from Georgina’s clutches, clenched and opened a fist to restore her circulation. Georgina, honestly, she was becoming far too controlling. It used to be Gina and Lottie against Earnestine, but now Georgina was that tiny bit older, it was Earnestine and Georgina ganging up on ‘little Lottie’. So unfair.
Earnestine came over, looking all stern and adult.
“Charlotte.”
“Yes, Ness.”
“Come along here,” said Earnestine, “where the others can’t hear us.”
They moved away, off the steps along the theatre front, until they were a good few yards away.
“Is it a secret?” Charlotte asked, excited.
“You are going to have to get married.”
“What!” – this was all too sudden – “But I’m only fifteen, barely fifteen.”
“Yes, clearly you have been slacking these last few years. We need to choose someone eligible, not too old, and with a dependable income, something from land.”
“I
don’t want to get married.”
“Nonsense. And you are far too young to know what you want. Women have a choice between being an Angel of the Home or a Fallen Women. You don’t want to be a fallen woman now, do you?”
“Maybe I do?”
“Don’t be foolish. You don’t know what one is, so how can you have an opinion either way.”
“You’re not married,” Charlotte countered. “Does that make you a fallen woman?”
“Don’t be impertinent.”
“I wouldn’t mind a Captain like Car–”
“He has frayed cuffs and therefore no money. We need to find an Earl or a Lord or a Lancashire industrialist.”
“But they’re all fat and ninety!”
Earnestine gave Charlotte a glare: “You may tell them you are a Deering–Dolittle, but on no account mention that we are the branch from Kent.”
“Our branch saved the Empire.”
“Which hardly engenders a reputation as respectable stay–at–home young ladies.”
Charlotte wondered how Earnestine could go on about respectable stay–at–home young ladies when she was being utterly horrid: “Stay at home!?”
“Don’t whine,” Earnestine chided. “You’re becoming as bad as Georgina before she was married.”
“But she’s ill now. She throws up every morning. I don’t want to catch Wife Ague.”
“There’s no such thing, and she does it discreetly, whereas… from now on, you must be seen and not heard, Charlotte.”
“But I’m not a child.”
“You were complaining earlier that you were too young,” Earnestine pointed out. “A child must be quiet, whereas a young lady looking for a husband must be silent.”
Charlotte went silent, but out of shock.
“So it’s decided,” Earnestine said, summing up. “A husband.”
Earnestine turned away, and Charlotte saw her dictatorial outline, her hawk–like nose and her pointy witch’s chin.
That was it then, Charlotte realised; they’d been planning behind her back to farm her off to some old fuddy–duddy. Well, she’d have none of it. First chance she got she’d talk to Uncle Jeremiah: he always understood her, and he’d invite her in to his drawing room, where he always had macaroons in a tin.